Writers are always told: write what you know. It’s as cliche was “the pen is mightier than the sword”. Unfortunately this leads to lots of fledgling writers composing short stories about twenty-somethings disillusioned with life, breakups, and college. At least, that’s the bulk of what I wrote in my undergraduate writing classes (and what most folks wrote)–for the most part, they were drivel. The thing is, you can take the adage to mean more than one thing. It’s not just writing about what you know, as in what your life is about, but also what kind of reading you do, what worlds you know. Hence, these days I write fantasy,…